The Nondirective Attitude in Client-Centered Therapy: A Response to Kahn

Abstract

This article rebuts Ed Kahn’s views of person-centered psychotherapy in his Journal of Humanistic Psychology article “A Critique of Nondirectivity in the Person-Centered Approach” published in Fall 1999. Kahn’s arguments are shown to be based on distortions and misunderstandings. The article shows that person-centered psychotherapists recognize the influence and thus “directivity” of all therapy and that nondirectivity in client-centered therapy refers to the therapist’s attitude and not technique. Kahn’s idea of a “one-person psychology” contradicts client-centered theory, and the basis for nondirectivity in Rogers’s theory is discussed. The article discusses a range of responses in client-centered work and shows the psycho-analytical premises in Kahn’s critique to be irrelevant to clientcentered nondirectivity. It discusses the humility of the therapist in relying on clients’ perceptions of their experiences and meanings as the basis for understanding. A segment from a person-centered session is presented as an illustration of nondirective process.

Teaching Person-Centered Multicultural Counseling: Collaborative Endeavors to Transcend Resistance and Increase Awareness

“…Although the person-centered approach (PCA) is often misunderstood and criticized without emic appraisal (Bozarth, 1999(Bozarth, ,2002Merry & Brodley, 2002), particularly concerning MCT (Cornelius-White, 2002,2003Cornelius-White & Godfrey, 2004), it can provide fundamental contributions to multicultural training. PCA is an orientation to counseling, education, and other helping endeavors that emphasizes empathy, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness in the helper.…”

Developing Adaptive Change Capabilities Through Client-Centred Therapy

“…Pure client-centred therapy, by definition, does not provide the client with information on the processes of change that would induce greater understanding of and use of these factors as a result of therapy (Bozarth, 2002; Kahn, 1999; Merry & Brodley, 2002; Sommerbeck, 2002) although there are suggestions that there is an agentic aspect to the therapeutic alliance (Daniels & Wearden, 2010). Insights about change that could be reinvoked in future are not shown through client-centred therapy.…”

“…While client-centred therapy has been shown to be at least as effective as other therapies (Gibbard & Hanley, 2008), debate in the literature pertaining to the characteristics of humanistic therapy centre around two key components: the unavoidable bias of the therapist's impact on the intention to be nondirective and that adhering to the principles of client-centred therapy limits of the range of responses available to the therapist to facilitate change for the client (Bozarth, 2002; Kahn, 1999; Merry & Brodley, 2002; Sommerbeck, 2002). Following from the second point is the ability of the client to gain from the therapeutic experience, the skills, insights and capabilities to generate change so that it can be reapplied when necessary (Scaturo, 2010).…”

La directividad en la relación terapéutica: análisis de la evidencia encontrada en investigación

“…Se teme que una relajación en esta actitud probablemente conducirá al terapeuta a asumir una pericia que es inconsistente con la teoría de base. Estos terapeutas reconocen que su teoría influencia a los clientes, pero de un modo muy diferente de la que se deriva de las intervenciones directivas (Merry & Temaner, 2002). También la terapia interpersonal y la psicoterapia psicoanalítica prescinden de instrucciones conductuales directas, siendo estos abordajes indicados para aquellos quienes responden más favorablemente al estímulo discreto o la experimentación (Apple, 1999) ya que se maximiza el involucramiento y la iniciativa del cliente sin directivas conductuales claras.…”